Sir,

You will not be waiting for long.

The Lady is a tramp.

I think you have read the situation wrong Stephen.

I believe that Kevin was very sincere with the apology. The wording was done in a very inclusive and consultative way. So what went wrong? Did Kev lose his way, or was he undermined by opponents who never really supported him but used his popularity to get over the line.

As events have turned out, I see the manipulations of Julia very strongly in undermining Kevin's position as PM. He probably responded, as many do, by working harder, franticly perhaps.

The beat up about the flight attendant is not that big a deal, as many of us will get irate at times. He is afterall human. The cancelling of the ETS is now obviously Julia and Swan's doing. With the powerbrokers oversight, I suspect it would have been difficult for Kevin to take Macklin to task over her dismal handling of her portfolio.

I am very interested in hearing Julia's stance on Indigenous Australian policy. I certainly hope she has changed her attitude since I spoke to her in 2002, I think she might have been opposition rep for Immigration and Indigenous affairs at the time.

Julia, when pressed, gave a rather blunt statement on where she saw Indigenous Australians in the big scheme of things. Unfortunately I was compelled to note that her response mirrored JH's stance, an observation that she did not protest, but defended.

I think Indigenous Australians will have a tough few years ahead, regardless if who wins the election.

This seems a very uncomplimentary comment on our former Prime Minister and somewhat dismissive of all he tried to do in a country that badly neeed things to be done before we succumb, as in the US, to a lesser form of societal meltdown (see yesterday's Online Opinion).

No one is perfect in every way and it depends how one judges the results against the efforts required. In the case of Kevin Rudd, he could not be criticised for effort but others may have seen his energies as a negative. Other examples of his judgement may not stand up to scrutiny either but when he/she seat as PM it will not be difficult to notice the difference in style, effort, honesty, loyalty, professionalism and credibility overseas.
We are badly served in PM material after 222 years of settlement, pathetically so in fact. Both candidates are uninspiring as people and already badly compromised as well.

Stretch your imagination and see either Abbott or Gillard on the international stage. Whereas Kevin Rudd was a representative that we could be proud of and was admired for his initiatives, Abbott or Gillard will never have the credibility of Rudd and time will prove that to be a sad fact.

So only time will show that in Kevin Rudd we had a worthy PM who promoted our country and was respected in so many ways. He didn't subscribe to factions, was disciplined and strong and gracefully succumbed to the disloyal leftwing Gillard when she sold out to the rightwing factions, previously totally unacceptable to her. Whichever way the wind blows, was her motto.

Dismiss Rudd by all means as this article has done but be aware that we are about to enter an era of vacuous incompetence and boring politics in the case of Gillard PM, and when within three years and the feckless Abbott has been replaced by Turnbull, the Liberals will be warmly welcomed and worth a bet in 2013.

Will it all have been worth the assassination, disloyalty, disruption and loss of credibility?

Time will tell, but probably not.

Nicely written piece that makes a lot of sense. Yet it fails to go any deeper than "popularity" in seeking an explanation for Rudd's dismissal. If we drop the "personality" aspect and look at what happened from another perspective it appears different. An overwhelmingly popular PM, popular at the only true poll, his election, was culled by persons known, and persons not known to the public who thought they had elected him to the position in 2007 . It seems to me that the forces opposed to taxation reform of the big mining corporation's incomes had our Prime Minister rolled. That looks a bit undemocratic in the sense that the nation's voters who thought they elected him didn't get an opportunity to pass judgement om him at the next poll/election. Rudd was ousted to save the profits of a few huge companies and our democracy is now weakened despite the process to oust him being "legal". It is time we reform our Westminster system so that we directly elect our Prime Minister. The weight of the people's direct votes will protect the Office of the PM from undemocratic forces.

So Artsgrad, are you suggesting that two (really three, counting for the senate) elections are held, one for representatives from each electorate, one for the senate, and one for the PM ? And what happens if Labour wins a majority of the electorate seats, Liberal wins a majority of Senate seats, and a PM (let's say, hypothetically, Bob Brown) is elected from neither party ? What powers would a PM have, distinct from the other parties and, presumably, from parliament ?

Not quite as simple as it sounds :)

Joe

and yet the only one who goes and spends time with real aboriginals is Abbott. It really is all about spin and no substance in the eyes of many.